It’s only when she begins to sweep the kitchen that she notices the coins. Ten of them, pound coins, scattered all over the floor. The children, pinching cash for sweets? She takes the candy tin from its hiding place, realizing by the weight that it’s empty. Her hands begin to shake and the tin rattles in her hand, just a little. When she opens it, the coins are gone. There’d been two hundred of them at the last count, Martin was going to take them to the bank. There’s not one left. Instead there are a couple of keys: the key to the block of flats and the key to their own front door, the ones on the small ring with the little red tab, which she’d lost way back, just before the assault. For a while her head feels empty and thoughts refuse to come. Then she walks onto the balcony, craning her neck to see down to the parking lot. There’s no one there, but the gang is back for sure; she’s just seen one of them, after all. Her thoughts race. They must be acting out a plan that was hatched a while ago, maybe in the days following the attack as they watched their friend recover in the hospital with a policeman outside his room. They wanted vengeance for what she did and they’ve been prepared to wait for months. They must have pounced on those keys where she dropped them on the stairs perhaps, and not in the flat after all; a gift, but one they didn’t use straightaway. They’ve been much cleverer than that. They’ve waited all this time and even then they didn’t ransack the place, nothing so crude. She can see them strolling around the rooms, taking their time; they might have let themselves in before. The skin on her arms rises in little bumps; this isn’t about robbery, it’s about power. They have helped themselves casually, as if the flat was their territory to plunder at will. They’ve issued a warning; there’s probably worse to come. She feels calm, as you do in an emergency. She calls security to schedule a lock change for their door, and then the co-op to arrange for an interview. She’ll have to work longer hours than she’d hoped to make up the cash; she’ll have less time with the children after all. She won’t tell the kids about the robbery, just Martin. Where the hell is he? It’s so late; what can he be thinking of?

She finishes sweeping the floor then hoovers the entire flat, removing every trace of their presence; it occurs to her she is removing evidence, but it’s far too risky to involve the police; she’d have to start from the beginning and could be blamed for the break-in. What did she expect, they could ask, since she’d stabbed one of the gang?

One thing is very clear: they can’t stay here much longer; it feels far too dangerous now.